The present invention relates to an apparatus for separating juice sacs of citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, and grapefruit without giving damages to them.
Such citrus fruits include a peel and segments wrapped with the peel, each segment having a segment sac and a multiplicity of juice sacs included in it. Juice sacs are separated individually and then packed in a can or mixed in a citrus juice for sale.
Heretofore, the juice sacs separating apparatus is composed of a tank for removing segment sacs of a citrus fruit with an acid or alkali solution, a washing tank for washing the segment sacs removed juice sacs with water, and a separating device for separating the washed juice sacs. In this prior art juice sacs separating apparatus, segment sacs of the citrus fruit are removed by melting them in the solution tank to obtain an aggregate of juice sacs, which is then washed by water to remove the acid or alkali solution. Thereafter, the juice sacs aggregate is passed through hot water to weaken their adhesive strength to each other and then transferred to the separating device where it undergoes a direct impact, such as caused by stirring, or an indirect impact such as by hydraulic pressure, vortices and steam. The prior art juice sacs separating apparatus has the following disadvantages. Firstly, processing of the citrus fruit takes rather long time and waste water and solution treatment is costly. Secondly, nutritive substances such as vitamin C contained in juice sacs are largely lost since they are exposed to heat in addition to the treatment solution and water. Lastly, the prior art juice sacs separating apparatus contains some manual processes which are laborious.